Tidewater terrors
by Lasgalendil
Summary: A collection of Curse of the Black Pearl one shots, containing moments of suspense and/or terror.
1. Loomings

Author's Note: Curse of the Black Pearl Scene Shots in short story style. This one's for FreeomOftheSeas!

* * *

Fear. Fog. Darkness.

They hung over Port Royal in the gathering storm, thunder rumbling menacingly in the distance.

It started when the wind had changed so suddenly. The villagers had talked about it as he crossed the square-hurried whispers, fingers raised to a snapping flag, shouts of surprise and gossips' glee. But Will Turner had ignored them, thinking only of the news he had heard while returning home from the Governor's mansion: _Elizabeth_.

He slammed the mallet down fiercely, striking the anvil and sending up showers of hot white sparks. Elizabeth frightened, hurt, and helpless; the Pirate's filthy, blackened fingers on her, his rank breath near her face…Again he struck, denting the softened iron with the mallet's head. One, two, three times he forced the metals together, driving the image from his mind.

But it was no longer the Pirate that filled him with sickening rage and doubt. He had held him at bay—to defend her, protect her—risked his own life to bring Elizabeth's attacker to justice but received no thanks in return. His drunk master receiving thanks in his stead he had known for years—but whispered words of James Norrington's proposal had reached his ears, poisoning his resign. Elizabeth would never belong to him, this much he knew, but just this one little thanks…._this _piece belonged rightfully to him, yet even that too, had been stripped away.

But just this morning—_this morning!—_for one fleeting, magical moment she had belonged to him. Good day, Mr. Turner she said so coldy, and yet, the words not wounded but thrilled him. Good day, he whispered, _Elizabeth_. Naively he had dared to hope--what exactly, he did not know, but that hope had filled him, stirred him, raised him as though from an age-long slumber. _I love her_, he had breathed in wonder_, and she loves me…_

Yet sometime today that sweetness and innocence had been stripped away, perhaps torn from him by the changing winds, leaving nothing but empty bitterness in their dying wake. He doused the hot metal hissing into a vat of water, then slammed it back to the anvil, and began to strike anew, every ringing blow a nail, and deeper and deeper he drove them as though into a coffin for his dead and foolish dreams. He was a blacksmith—_just _a blacksmith, and he had no hope nor right to ever be anything else but what he was.

He sought refuge from his anger and emptiness in the familiarity of his craft, but even in this small comfort where the falls of the hammer were the only sound, it was not enough to fight away the enveloping gloom from neither skin nor soul. The overwhelming emptiness came not only from inside him—it surrounded him. For the first time in his eight years in Port Royal, Will Turner felt _chilled_. Even standing close to the blazing furnace he was strangely cold. Something was out there, waiting, looming, ominous in the dark. An eerie doubt gripped him, and suddenly he dropped the tools and put one red, roughened hand to the shutters, peering through the fog at the silent street.

But there was nothing; no answers, no solace, no threats. Nothing but the ghostly streams of fog—and the dim shape of a cat, fleeing.

But _something _was coming. Closer, stronger, nearer…

A boom echoed in the distant harbor. It was here.


	2. Eclipse

"We know you're in here, poppit…"

Trapped.

Terrified, alone, inescapably trapped. Through the thin, gilt door, she could hear their heavy footfalls and smell their salty, putrid stench. Only one tiny, golden shaft of light struck her eyes through the door seams, flickering in and out like a dying candle.

They were pacing in front of the closet. And when that flame went out, she would be discovered.

She was surprised they hadn't heard her already-her racing heart surely had given her away. Even now, it was in her throat, crying to her pursuers. _Right here_, it beat. _Right here. See us. See us. _

Pirates. Not the kind she had so foolishly loved as a child, but _Pirates_. The kind of ruthless, dirty men who would take what they wanted, all else be damned. The sort of men who would rape, even kill with no thought of casualties. And now…now they wanted her. Jack Sparrow's face jumped into her head, his dirty fingers on her face, she powerless to stop him…but this time, there was no father or James to intervene.

Right here, right here, right here, her treacherous heart continued to echo. _Please move on_. She thought desperately. _Please just go on…_

"You 'ave something what belongs to us."

_The medallion! Will!_ She clenched her thin fingers desperately around the cold, smooth disk, feeling its every ridge tear into her palm. Will's medallion-the guilty secret she had kept all these years to protect him…she had pulled it out, just this morning…

"It calls to us. The gold…calls…to us." Yes, yes not her heart but the gold, the gold called, beckoned, summoned all things evil. She had always feared it, hated it, loathed herself for hiding and keeping this terrible treasure.

_What are you?_ _What will become of us?_ She questioned, tracing the worn, ridged surface with a shaking thumb. But Will's medallion offered no answers, it's cadaverous smile only maddening in the certainty of her suffering. Right here--did it really pulse in her hand, like a tiny, hideous heart?--Right here…

Eclipse.

The medallion's glittering grin was plunged suddenly into darkness. A foul air crossed her in this terrible Hell, and she raised her fear-stricken eyes to a pirate's blackened smile. Her heart, too late, now ceased its beating.

Agony.

"'ello, poppit."


	3. Never Know

_You'd better start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. _ _You're in one._

Wine like blood pouring down rotten bones, staining them a ghastly scarlet…those fingers of warm, living flesh turning suddenly to grey stone and tendons…and the blood, the blood to be repaid…

She shuddered, past fright and disbelief, and lay her head back against the wall of the _Pearl._ The same ghost ship, with haunting black masts and tattered, dying sails that she had seen eight years ago on the crossing from England, while holding Will's medallion, cold and hard like a giant coin in her palms, so intrigued and yet utterly terrified: _You're a pirate…_

But that intrigue was gone.

She had taken the medallion to protect him. But now it was his blood, his life they wanted, not hers—and all she had to do to be free of them was to confess, cry out _no, no,_ _take Will instead!_

Eerie fog drifted by the windows, and she shuddered as a distant shadow formed dark and solid against the horizon: la Isla de Muerta. "Time to go, Poppit." Her dark eyes remained listless, unraised. Rough cord bound her hands and she was led slowly up to the deck as silent as the shadow of a sacrificial lamb.

Long, mottled grey nails swept her hair from her face, draping a thin, gold chain weighted with the wrath of Aztec gods across her collarbones. Low chants and sneers curled around her in the mist. In this sea of men, she was utterly alone.

Past doubt, past hope, her lips tightly pressed, lest the deep, hidden part of herself betray her at the last. She had given Will's name as her own to protect herself…now she held it to save him, using every ounce of strength to keep the clawing, mutinous truth from ever surfacing.

Oarlocks clicked, and the tiny host of boats began to cut through glass-smooth water. In the overbearing silence, every stroke swirled and swished live, die, live, die in time with the rest, a chorus of doubt gnawing away her resolve. _No,_ she whispered fiercely to her weakness. _You are Elizabeth Turner. Elizabeth Turner…_and the struggle melted away, desperation turned to sweetness like the first time, all those years ago, when she had first spoken that name to herself in childlike fancy and love.

The medallion lay like the memory of a kiss above her heart, the only they would ever share. And he would never know. Sweetness turned to sadness turned to despair. Elizabeth Turner: this final choice, like her love, irrevocable. She loved him. And he would never know. _He would never, ever know…_

Then the growing grotto swallowed her from swirling fog into utter darkness.

And he would never know.

.


	4. Love or Life

Cries of fury and pain, the desperate ringing of steel on steel, even the staccato explosions of musket shot and cannon fire all were drowned in one terrible moment as the H.M.S. Interceptor herself groaned under the weight of the battle on her deck. The main mast, a timber 60 feet high, as wide around as a man in girth and designed to withstand the shearing forces of ripping, hurricane winds, collapsed with finality onto the deck, jarring every nail and bolt from its place, sending death spasms down the skeleton of the ship.

Those on the surface dove out of her way as she fell. She struck and bounced, splintering the port gunnels and crushing the deck under her weight. Then the moment of death and danger was past.

But Will Turner wasn't on the deck when she fell. He had gone into the belly of the beast, and would find her dying jaws shut tightly behind him. The blow had thrown him to the floor, rendering him momentarily senseless. But frigid ocean waters and the din from the deck quickly roused him and he stood, drunkenly, crying out in pain as his eyes were seared from salt-water spray in every direction. The cabin was leaking-already the level was up to his knees….and water, water everywhere angrily hissed and poured in spouts and streams.

But the medallion was down here. Their only hope of barter or rescue…

A strange, chirping cry, not made by any man. He wheeled, squinting through the scintillating spray to see a doused monkey, dressed in a silken jacket, holding the medallion by the chain. Will lunged after it, throwing aside all questions of where it had come from and how it had found the necklace in the churning, white water that was now lapping towards his heart. It scampered nimbly away, into the light of the hatch.

Will ran to the hatch, cursing inwardly as the creature slipped deftly through the iron thatch work, beyond either reach or hope. But then a matter even more pressing leapt suddenly to his mind: the hatch.

The monkey had fled up a solid beam that even moments before, hadn't existed. The sunlight streaming in through the iron cover was at half-light: what could only be the remains of the mast lay heavy, dead, and impossible over his only means of escape. He was trapped---and the water was rising so quickly…

"Hey!" Will shouted, desperate to be heard by those fighting above. "Hey, below!" He shoved all the force he could into his shoulder, willing the rough wood to bend, to break, to move, every muscle in his legs, back and neck straining with the force.

It was not enough. Would never be nearly enough.

"Hey!" Will cried again. "Below!" It was selfish, he knew, and utterly futile. Every man on deck—even two women, one he loved so dearly—was now locked in battle, fighting for their very lives. He was more alone now than he had ever been before. Even Elizabeth—_Elizabeth!—_was less than twenty feet away, and yet farther away and more impossible to touch than she had ever been in Port Royal, powdered and curled, corseted and laced, smelling of honey and roses…He shoved desperately against the beam, his feet sliding along the slippery floor, losing balance and force as the churning waters rose higher and higher around him. But he had to move the beam, had to be freed, had to live, to love, to marry, to save Elizabeth…

"Will!" And suddenly she was there, her slender fingers reaching longingly for his own, shoving her pale, white shoulders against the mast from above, bracing all the force in her bones and her love to free him.

And for a moment, as their dark eyes met, he really believed she could.

"I can't move it!" Elizabeth shouted down to him, her twisted face inches from his own, her voice barely audible over the rushing of water and the shouts and explosions on the deck. There was horror in her wide eyes, horror and love, so desperate and so beautiful mingled together. She would stay. He could not be freed, but she would stay…

He felt his heart would burst in fear, bracing himself against the beam as the water choked around his throat. But he could die, looking into those eyes, knowing she knew he had done everything to save her, had failed her, but had been forgiven…Elizabeth had come. She would stay…

"_No!_" Hands gripped her and wrenched her away. "_No!_ _Will!_" It was a dying screech, straight from her soul, echoed in his, the sound the Interceptor herself had made as her mast tore from her, voiding her of purpose and meaning and life. Her hands scrabbled once across the grate, desperate for his…

And then she was gone.

_Gone. _

But—she had come for him. Forgiven him. Surely he could die, content, knowing that she loved him…surely that would be enough…

But her love itself could never be enough. He would be a fool, a selfish, blinded, arrogant fool not to surrender even that love to know she was safe. Her life, and not her love, was the only thing worth saving, worth dying for. He braced against the beam again, knowing even then it would be just as in vain as his failed attempt to save her.

Dark water churned all around him, lapping gently around his face, caressing his neck, lulling him into its cold, eternal embrace. He sipped the air, sweet against the salty brine, then took one last, deep and heady draught and dove.

Will braced against the heartless beam, forcing thoughts of Elizabeth into his head, terrified to die selfish, a coward, here at the very end. A dark, desperate wish to live, to live struggled against all rational thought or reason. His lungs burned, his heart ached, pulling, struggling_….drowning_.

Darkness.

Above him, light, like air, had disappeared.


End file.
